London has been battered by 50mph winds that have felled trees and caused travel chaos. Powerful gusts swept across the capital as the Met Office issued a yellow "be aware" weather alert for most of the country.

What better way to celebrate Barack Obama’s inauguration than debating whether our transatlantic cousins are still hitting home runs.

The Today programme’s Justin Webb, Spectator editor Fraser Nelson and American journalist Edie Lush discussed whether the best is yet to come for America at the Corinthia hotel, at a debate organised by the PR company Seven Hills.

Lush, quoting Politico website, said: “Second terms — like second mortgages, second marriages and second trips to the salad bar — are seldom as gratifying as the first time around.” She pointed out the latest polls show Congress’s approval rating places it “somewhere between cockroaches and gonorrhoea”.

“Americans always expect things to be going great,” said Nelson. “And when they aren’t they get suicidal.” But he warned the British against a sense of superiority. “If we joined the US tomorrow, we’d be the fifth poorest state in the union.”